Part 4 (1/2)
There is no conceit, we are apt to say, like that born of isolation from the world, and there are no such conceited people as those who have lived all their lives in the woods Phelps was, however, unsophisticated in his until the advent of strangers into his life, who brought in literature and various other disturbing influences I a of the bloom of his simplicity, and to elevate him into an oracle I suppose this is inevitable as soon as one goes into print; and Phelps has gone into print in the local papers He has been bitten with the literary ”git up” Justly regarding most of the Adirondack literature as a ”perfect fizzle,” he has himself projected a work, and written o he e map of the mountain country; and, until recent surveys, it was the only one that could lay any claiinal in form, and unconventional in expression Like most of the writers of the seventeenth century, and the court ladies and gentlehteenth century, he is an independent speller Writing of his work on the Adirondacks, he says, ”If I should ever live to get this wonderful thing written, I expect it will show one thing, if nohas an opposite I expect to show in this that literature has an opposite, if I do not show any thing els We could not enjoy the blessings and happiness of riteousness if we did not know innicuty was in the world: in fact, there would be no riteousness without innicuty” Writing also of his great enjoy in the woods, especially since he has had the society there of some people he names, he adds, ”And since I have Literature, Siance, and Art all spread about on the green ravell banks of a cristle strea roses, honeysuckels, and violets on a crisp brown cliff in Deceion of sera that has life and spirit in it is food for lect to mention an essay, continued in several numbers of his local paper, on ”The Growth of the Tree,” in which he demolishes the theory of Mr Greeley, whoroithout seed” He treats of the office of sap: ”All trees have so in their season,” the disserowth, the power of healing wounds, the proportion of roots to branches, &c Speaking of the latter, he says, ”I have thought it would be one of the greatest curiosities on earth to see a thrifty growing rown on a deep soil interval to be two feet in diameter, to be raised clear into the air with every root and fibre down to the minutest thread, all entirely cleared of soil, so that every particle could be seen in its natural position I think it would astonish even the wise ones” Froetable organisiven powerful instincts, which would alment in some cases, to provide for its oants and necessities”
Here our study must cease When the prier prireed that civilization is kept up only by a constant effort: Nature claims its own speedily when the effort is relaxed If you clear a patch of fertile ground in the forest, uproot the stumps, and plant it, year after year, in potatoes and maize, you say you have subdued it But, if you leave it for a season or two, a kind of barbaris woods; coarse grass and brale; the raspberry and the blackberry flower and fruit; and the huround is worse than the first
Perhaps the cleared spot is called Ephesus There is a splendid city on the plain; there are temples and theatres on the hills; the commerce of the world seeks its port; the luxury of the Orient flows through its marble streets You are there one day when the sea has receded: the plain is a pestilent ates have sunken and crurow pensive in the es out of a tomb, and offers to relieve you of all that which creates artificial distinctions in society The higher the civilization has risen, the more abject is the desolation of barbarism that ensues The most melancholy spot in the Adirondacks is not a tamarack-swamp, where the traveler wades in moss and mire, and the atmosphere is composed of equal active parts of black-flies, e of the Adirondack Iron-Works, where the streets of gaunt houses are falling to pieces, tenantless; the factory-wheels have stopped; the furnaces are in ruins; the iron and wooden machinery is strewn about in helpless detach proclaie, even Calaed shores of stunted firs, and its melancholy shaft that marks the spot where the proprietor of the iron-works accidentally shot himself, is cheerful
The instinct of barbarism that leads people periodically to throw aside the habits of civilization, and seek the freedoh; but it is not so easy to understand why this passion should be strongest in those who are most refined, and most trained in intellectual and social fastidiousness Philistinism and shoddy do not like the woods, unless it becomes fashi+onable to do so; and then, as speedily as possible, they introduce their artificial luxuries, and reduce the life in the wilderness to the vulgarity of a well-fed picnic It is they who have strewn the Adirondacks with paper collars and tin cans The real enjoy in the woods lies in a return to pri, dress, and food, in as total an escape as may be from the requirements of civilization And it remains to be explained why this is enjoyed hly civilized It is wonderful to see how easily the restraints of society fall off Of course it is not true that courtesy depends upon clothes with the best people; but, with others, behavior hangs alot rid of in the woods Doubt soal holiday there It becoyman whether he ation are present He intends no harratifies a curiosity to see if he can hit the ht throw a stone at a chipht he fire at a un that h he is nothat day than on any other); but uide swears he caught the as a vacation in religion? How much of our virtue do e to inherited habits?
I am not at all sure whether this desire to camp outside of civilization is creditable to human nature, or otherwise We hear so for four centuries in Europe I suspect thatte into the wilderness is an escape, longed for, into our natural and preferred state Consider what this ”careeable to people erate its delights
The Adirondack wilderness is essentially unbroken A few bad roads that penetrate it, a few jolting wagons that traverse thee of the forest, where the boarders are soothed by patent coffee, and stiayety by japan tea, and experie fascination of the region In half an hour, at any point, one can put himself into solitude and every desirable discomfort The party that covets the experience of the camp comes down to priuides and porters to carry the blankets for beds, the raw provisions, and the cae; and the motley party of the teins, perhaps by a road, perhaps on a trail, its exhilarating and wearyaside of restraint, partly from the adventure of exploration; and the weariness, fro, a heavy pack, and the grim monotony of trees and bushes, that shut out all prospect, except an occasional glimpse of the sky Mountains are painfully cli and muddy ”carries” traversed Fancy this party the victim of political exile, banished by the law, and a ined; but the voluntary hardshi+p becomes pleasure, and it is undeniable that the spirits of the party rise as the difficulties increase
For this straggling and stuinning of things; it has cut loose from tradition, and is free to make a home anywhere: the inal freshness invites the prie of the forests suggests endless possibilities of exploration and possession Perhaps we are treading where man since the creation never trod before; perhaps the waters of this bubbling spring, which we deepen by scraping out the decayed leaves and the black earth, have never been tasted before, except by the wild denizens of these woods We cross the trails of lurking anihten our sense of seclusion fro of the infrequent woodpecker, the call of the lonely bird, the drue,--all these sounds do but emphasize the loneso over its bed of pebbles, rising out of the ravine, and spreading, as it were, awaves that have the rhythm of eternity in theh the balsarand symphonies shut out the little exasperations of our vexed life! It seeain on the simplest teration to escape from the preacher, or of the preacher to escape from himself, that drives sophisticated people into the wilderness, as it is the unconquered craving for pri dress-parade of our civilization From this monstrous pomposity even the artificial rusticity of a Petit Trianon is a relief It was only huency should run away to the New World, and live in a forest-hut with an Indian squaw; although he found little satisfaction in his act of heroism, unless it was talked about at Versailles
When our trampers come, late in the afternoon, to the bank of a lovely lake where they purpose to enter the priin expectation There is a little pro down to a sandy beach, on which the waters idly lapse, and shoals of red-fins and shi+ners coer; the forest is untouched by the axe; the tender green sweeps the water's edge; ranks of slender firs are marshaled by the shore; clu the evergreens; the boles of giant spruces, e, stretch away in endless galleries and arcades; through the shi+fting leaves the sunshi+ne falls upon the brown earth; overhead are frags appear the bluer lake and the outline of the gracious mountains The discoverers of this paradise, which they have entered to destroy, note the babbling of the brook that flows close at hand; they hear the splash of the leaping fish; they listen to the sweet,thrush, and the chatter of the red squirrel, who angrily challenges their right to be there But the moment of sentiment passes
This party has coe Nature in her poetic attitudinizing
The spot for a shanty is selected This side shall be its opening, towards the lake; and in front of it the fire, so that the se the mosquitoes; yonder shall be the cook's fire and the path to the spring The whole colony bestir themselves in the foundation of a new home,--an enterprise that has all the fascination, and none of the danger, of a veritable new settleuides resound in the echoing spaces; great trunks fall with a crash; vistas are opened towards the lake and the mountains The spot for the shanty is cleared of underbrush; forked stakes are driven into the ground, cross-pieces are laid on theround In an incredible space of time there is the skeleton of a house, which is entirely open in front The roof and sides reat spruces are skinned The woodain six feet above, and slashes it perpendicularly; then, with a blunt stick, he crowds off this thick hide exactly as an ox is skinned
It needs but a few of these skins to cover the roof; and they ht roof, except when it rains Meantihs of the spruce and the feathery balsaround underneath the shanty for a bed It is an aro Upon it are spread the blankets The sleepers, of all sexes and ages, are to lie there in a row, their feet to the fire, and their heads under the edge of the sloping roof Nothing could be better contrived The fire is in front: it is not a fire, but a conflagration--a vast heap of green logs set on fire--of pitch, and split dead-wood, and crackling balsaht falls, the cook has prepared supper Everything has been cooked in a tin pail and a skillet,--potatoes, tea, pork,could have been prepared in so few utensils
When you eat, the wonder ceases: everything ht have been cooked in one pail It is a noble es, sitting about upon logs and roots of trees Never were there such potatoes, never beans that seemed to have more of the bean in them, never such curly pork, never trout with more Indian-meal on them, never mutton more distinctly sheepy; and the tea, drunk out of a tin cup, with a luar dissolved in it,--it is the sort of tea that takes hold, lifts the hair, and disposes the drinker to anecdote and hilariousness There is no deception about it: it tastes of tannin and spruce and creosote Everything, in short, has the flavor of the wilderness and a free life It is idyllic And yet, with all our senti The slapjacks are a solid job of work, o to pieces in a person's stoht record on them, in cuneiforenerations would doubtless turn them up as Acadian bricks Good, robust victuals are what the primitiveof light froration the woods are black There is a tremendous impression of isolation and lonesoht The woods never seeantic There are noises that we do not understand,--reat galleries, tree-trunks grinding against each other, undefinable stirs and uneasinesses The shapes of those who pass into the dimness are outlined in lare of the fire, talk about appearances and presentihts, and catamount encounters, and frozen-to-death experiences, and sireat prolixity and no point, and jokes of primitive lucidity We hear catas in the leaves, and the hooting of owls, and, when the e, spectral, fascinating
By and by we get our positions in the shanty for the night, and arrange the row of sleepers The shanty has become a smoke-house by this time: waves of s down, and getting the head well under the eaves, that one can breathe No one can find her ”things”; nobody has a pillow At length the row is laid out, with the sole, drives away the sht is said a hundred times; positions are readjusted,about, final remarks; it is all so comfortable and romantic; and then silence Silence continues for a minute The fire flashes up; all the row of heads is lifted up simultaneously to watch it; showers of sparks sail aloft into the blue night; the vast vault of greenery is a fairy spectacle How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fireflies, and all the leaves o out: we see the in the sky when the flaht More folding of the ar, or the insufficiency of a pocket-handkerchief, for a pillow Good-night Was that a re into the back ”You couldn't lie along a hair?”---”Well, no: here's another stub It needs but a eneral,--about roots under the shoulder, stubs in the back, a ridge on which it is impossible for the sleeper to balance, the non-elasticity of boughs, the hardness of the ground, the heat, the smoke, the chilly air Subjects of re like an aviary The owl is also awake; but the guides who are asleep outside make more noise than the owls Water is wanted, and is handed about in a dipper Everybody is yawning; everybody is now deterht There is an appalling silence It is interrupted in the ot the start, and gone to sleep
He proclaiht up on the seashore, and to kno to make all the deep-toned noises of the restless ocean
He is also like a war-horse; or, it is suggested, like a saw-horse How ins again in another key! One head is raised after another
”Who is that?”
”Somebody punch him”
”Turn him over”
”Reason with him”
The sleeper is turned over The turn was a reeable side The canation
The sleeper sits up in bewilderain, two or three others have preceded hie what a person is when he is awake There are here half a dozen disturbers of the peace who should be put in solitary confineht, when a philosopher crawls out to sit on a log by the fire, and s on in the shanty, with a chorus always co time Those who are not asleep want to knohy the set so, to see what time it is, to note whether it looks like rain A buzz of conversation arises She is sure she heard so behind the shanty He says it is all nonsense ”Perhaps, however, it ht be a mouse”
”Mercy! Are there mice?”
”Plenty”